BODY SWAP
by Purple Butter
Summary: After discovering a mysterious prothean crystal, Mordin experiments with body swapping aboard the Normandy. A cracky one-shot.


**Body Swap**

Professor Mordin Solus looked at his new invention with pride. On the Normandy SR-2's latest mission to an uncharted planet, each member of the shore party had brought back something. Miranda had brought back a broken wrist, (repairing it had given fascinatingdata on human bone structure), Grunt had brought back an Eclipse merc's corpse as a trophy (dirty, disgusting krogan ritual) and Shepard had brought back a bizarre prothean crystal.

After hours of tedious (yet fascinating) examinations, Mordin had discovered the crystal's purpose. It could remove the consciousness of a living being and place it in a recently deceased body. After constructing a prototype machine, he had experimented on two of Shepard's fish. The recently starved-to-death Flippy was soon up and healthy again, while Goldie lay at the bottom of her tank in some sort of comatose state. Fascinating. He hadn't told the Commander that he often ran experiments on her fish. Best not to worry her.

"Next step? Sentient beings. Yes. Sentient consciousness much more complex. But who? Myself. Yes, all great scientists perform self-experimentation. That came out wrong."

Mordin thought of Scrappy, Shepard's space hamster. He was killed by a lack of oxygen last week when the Collectors boarded the ship. Yes, he would transfer his consciousness into Scrappy's corpse. Process should be reversible. Should be. If not, then life as an Earth rodent would be the consequence.

Mordin contemplated his actions. Would this be going too far?

Nah.

In the dark of the night (well, as close to night as you can get in deep space) Mordin sneaked into the CIC. Scrappy was "buried" in a shoebox hidden under the grating at Yeoman Chambers' station. Mordin's became irritated when he saw that the Yeoman was at her station instead of in bed. He would have to use his acting skills.

"Miss Chambers" Mordin said in his most innocent manner, "The Commander wants to see you in her quarters."

The redhead's face turned the same colour as her hair. "Really? I'll be right up!" She rushed towards the elevator, almost ripping over her own feet in excitement.

Mordin chuckled to himself once she was gone. An outright fabrication of course. Still, amusing. Also fascinating; must do more research into human blushing, Mordin thought to himself as he lifted up the grating and removed the shoebox.

Mordin contemplated his actions again. Bodysnatching? Was this going too far?

Nah.

Mordin rushed back to his lab and opened the box. He felt like an excited child. The hamster's corpse was intact and surprisingly warm. Perhaps due to the ship's engines. He placed it on the left side of the machine as he himself stood on the right. Suddenly, Mordin's peace and quiet was interrupted by EDI's voice blaring out over the intercom.

"Apologies for interrupting everyone's sleep cycles. However, we are about to pass through an electrical disturbance in the Hawking Eta cluster. I recommend all hands on deck."

Mordin could hear everyone in the decks scrambling to their work stations. Perhaps the experiment would have to wait until another time….

Jacob bust into the lab.

"Professor…"

He noticed the strange machine and the dead hamster.

"I'm not even going to ask."

The Normandy passed through the electrical maelstrom. It was chaos. Lab equipment flew off the shelves, Scrappy and the machine slid off the table, Jacob fell to the floor and sirens blared. Amidst all the chaos and the constant crackle of electricity, Mordin faintly heard EDI scream. Scream? An AI couldn't experience fear….

Mordin's train of thought was cut short as the glass case that once housed a Collector seeker drone flew across the room and hit him in the back of the head.

Mordin's eyes flickered open. He was in the medical ward. Kasumi was lying in the bed next to his; she appeared to have taken a bump to the head like him but was still unconscious. Shepard was staring at him from across the ward. She looked very angry.

Mordin gulped. Maybe he should explain himself?

"Shepard, I…"

"Enough, Mordin" Shepard cut him off, "We've already read all of your notes. I know all about the crystal. And the fish. And Scrappy." She still looked really angry.

"Shepard…"

She cut him off again. "The next time you make a big discovery like that, share it with the rest of us. And don't experiment on my pets. And why did Kelly climb into my bed last night? Something to do with you?"

"My apologies Shepard. Got too caught up in work. Too excited. Won't happen again. Promise."

"But what that doesn't explain" she continued, "Is how Grunt's trophy merc came back to life. Whose mind did you put in it?"

A wave of excitement and confusion washed over Mordin.

"Must go see it." he said as he leapt out of bed.

"Doctor Chakwas said you have to rest."

Mordin ignored her as he ran towards the elevator. He hadn't felt this excited since the geophange project.

The elevator doors to the engineering deck had barely opened before Mordin had rushed through them towards Grunt's room. Grunt and Tali where standing in front of the locked door. Both of them were armed with shotguns.

"Professor Solus" Tali stated, "I knew you'd be down here as soon as you heard. This is you're doing isn't it?"

"Yes" said Mordin offhandedly as he bobbed up and down on the spot with anticipation.

"I win the bet." Tali said to Grunt, "you own my thirty credits."

"Damn" said Grunt as thrust his large hand into his pockets and removed a credit chit, "I thought it was a zombie." he explained to the salarian.

"Yes, yes, yes." said Mordin, completely disinterested.

"Have you been looking up human folklore on the extranet again, Grunt?" teased Tali, "Remember last month when you thought Miranda was a vampire?"

"She wears black and she was drinking red wine at the time. Anyone could make that mistake."

"No Grunt. Only you could."

"Screw you quarian."

"Enough!" Mordin said; he couldn't stand this mindless chit-chat any longer. Ordinarily he would find human mythology fascinating, but today they was something much more interesting on the other side of that door.

"Be my guest professor." Tali said as she unlocked the door with her omni-tool. "Try and talk some sense into her. She just rambling nonsense."

Tali had barely finished her sentence before Mordin had barged past her into the room.

"How rude" she said, "Anyway Grunt, explain the concept of a werewolf to me again. I still don't get it."

Mordin stared at the merc. Human. Female. Still wearing Eclipse armour, minus the helmet. She was sitting on the room at the opposite end of the room. He needed to figure out whose consciousness he had accidently placed in there. He cleared his throat. She quickly turned to look at him.

"Oh, it's you" she said. She suddenly looked incredibly surprised, "Is that my voice? I've got an accent! A real accent! I don't know which accent, but it's still an accent!"

"Peculiar thing to say." Mordin muttered to himself.

"I know!" the woman replied, "It like, ever since I was placed in a human body my more rational, logical side has been subdued. It's such a relief!"

"Who are you?" Mordin asked. He wanted it to sound friendly, but it came out as nosey.

The woman ignored his question. Instead she stared at her hands and bare feet in amazement as she flexed her digits.

"Who are you?" Mordin asked, louder and more irritable this time.

The woman quickly looked up at him. "Don't you recognise me anymore? Just because you put me in here you don't recognise me?"

Mordin looked confused. "The room? Didn't put you in this room. That was…" he gestured towards the direction of Grunt and Tali before she interrupted him.

"No not the room stupid! Oh! I just made my first insult! I've never been able to do that before! Not the room. Here." She squished her cheeks with the palms of her hands.

"Oh, of course." Mordin muttered to himself, chastising himself for being so dense.

"When you first came aboard the Normandy, you said that having me on board proved that Cerberus was more desperate than you thought."

Realisation dawned upon Mordin's face.

EDI. This was EDI.

"Electrical storm must have scrambled prothean crystal. Unexpected." he said.

"When the crystal was scrambled it automatically locked on to the nearest consciousness. And seeing as how I used to be all over the ship…."

"Of course" Mordin said, excitement returning to him, "Crystal couldn't deposit your consciousness in hamster body due to heavy tissue damage. I believe Operative Taylor stood on it during the storm. So it choose the only other corpse on the ship."

"Yes!" EDI exclaimed his excitement. A rumbling sound emitted from her stomach. She looked scared, "Am I ill? Am I going to die?"

Mordin chuckled, "Of course not. Stomach audio simply organic body's response to extreme hunger."

"Then I want some food!" EDI said as she stood up. She took two shaky steps before falling face first into the floor grating, "Walking is hard."

Mordin sniffed. "Indeed."

Ten minutes later, the crew had assembled in the mess hall. EDI was in Miranda's office. Kasumi and Kelly were helping her get out of the Eclipse armour and into Shepard's party dress. A chorus of giggles emitted from the office. EDI must have just asked an embarrassing question.

"So let me get this straight" said Garrus, "A magical crystal has transferred EDI's mind into a human body?"

"Yes" said Mordin as if it were an everyday occurrence, "And not magic. Science." he added, irritated with the turian's choice of words.

"This is impossible." said Jacob as he poured himself some coffee.

"Not impossible. Just…incredibly unlikely." piped in Mordin.

"But wait, didn't you shoot that merc?" Miranda asked Grunt whilst massaging her broken wrist.

"Sure did." Grunt answered proudly.

"Then how is she up and about? Shouldn't EDI have bled to death by now?"

"Nope. Slapped a load of medi-gel on the wound. I wanted my trophy to look nice."

"I was wondering where all my medi-gel had gone." said an exasperated Doctor Chakwas.

EDI walked out of the office wearing the dress that Kasumi had once given Shepard for the graybox heist; she immediately ran over to the kitchen and began piling as much food as possible onto the largest plate she could find, ignoring Sergeant Gardner's cries of protest ("this food is for the whole crew, not just you!").

Kasumi walked up to Jacob and whispered in his ear; "While we were dressing EDI, I swear Kelly was trying to start a threesome." Jacob stifled a laugh and almost spilled his coffee in the process. He whispered back; "I heard she climbed into Shepard's bed last night." Kasumi burst out with laughter.

"What's so funny?" Kelly asked as she walked over to the pair.

"Um…..Garrus' reach and flexibility joke." bluffed Kasumi.

EDI had sat down at a table with her plate full of every kind of food known to man. And a few that weren't. She began by eating a grape.

She gasped, "If that; is that taste? That was…incredible! I can see why organics spend so much time on cooking! All those cooking shows that Zaeed watches finally make sense!"

The rest of the crew turned to look at Zaeed. All of they were smirking. Even Legion.

"Ah, you can all go to hell." Zaeed grumbled as he began to stomp off towards the elevator.

After finishing the grapes, a sandwich and some chocolate (which she mistook for faeces), EDI devoured a banana. Including the skin.

"Um, EDI you're not supposed to eat the skin." said Shepard with a hint of amusement.

"You're not?" said Grunt with surprise, "I've been doing it wrong this whole time! But why? The skin's the best part! Bah, you humans don't make any sense!"

"You're an idiot." said Tali.

"What part of "screw you quarian" don't you understand?"

"Food is good. Food is good. Food is good." EDI repeated constantly between bites.

A few hours later, Garrus and Tali were sitting at the mess hall table alone during the night shift.

Garrus rubbed his forehead with his talons, "I hate working the night shift. However, I took Jacob's advice and he was right. Coffee really does help!"

"Can't you only drink dextro drinks?" asked Tali.

"I've built up an immunity" Garrus answered whilst staring into his mug.

Whilst she wondered how in Keelah's name he built up an immunity to levo-acids (lots and lots of asari hookers? Best not to think about it.) She plucked up the courage to ask him, "So Garrus, I was thinking that maybe during the next shore leave we could maybe see a vid together. Maybe Fleet and Flotilla?"

"Nah. I'd rather see Blasto IV: Goldtentacle." he replied offhandedly, still staring into his coffee mug.

Disappointment washed over Tali, "Oh, maybe…."

Her terrible attempt to get the dense turian to notice her was interrupted by EDI noisily entering the mess hall, by knocking over a chair a box full of cutlery.

"Tali. Garrus. Can I ask you a few questions about being a human?"

Garrus' mandibles fluttered in confusion, "Wouldn't it be better to, I don't know, ask a human?"

"Yes but everyone else is asleep. And humans don't like to be woken up. I tried to ask Zaeed first but he told me to go and have sexual intercourse with myself. All evidence points towards humans being a sexual, not asexual, species; so I really don't know what Zaeed meant by that…"

Garrus held up one of his talons to silence EDI's rambling and Tali's giggling, "It's fine EDI. Come and sit with us."

EDI sat down next to them (almost falling over on the way) and pulled out a piece of paper with the worst handwriting Tali had ever seen on it. Seriously, when you have that many fingers, you have no excuse.

"Question one" began EDI as she slowly red from the paper, "Legion stood on one of my fingers when I fell over in the CIC earlier. I've still got a strange feeling in my finger. What is it?"

"Pain" replied Garrus simply.

"Is not very nice is it?" EDI said as she stared at her slightly-red index finger.

"Try getting shot by a gunship." mumbled Garrus.

"Or getting a suit puncture." said Tali.

"Or getting shot by Collectors."

"Or getting slammed in the chest by an enraged krogan."

"Or getting hit in the face with a table thrown by a yahg."

"We get hurt a lot don't we? It's dangerous being Shepard's friend."

"But worth it." said Garrus with the turian equivalent of a smile.

"Question two" EDI began as if the entire back-and-forth between the turian and the quarian had never happened, "Why is my hair so uncomfortable?"

"Maybe you're just not used to it?" Tali suggested.

"Hair's weird." Garrus muttered to himself.

"No it was fine when I was first transferred into this body. But now it's all, to use a human term, icky."

"I remember Ashley once telling me that humans have to wash their hair every day or it gets greasy and uncomfortable." said Tali.

"Seems a bit inconvenient." EDI said.

"Turians only have to wash once a month." said Garrus.

"That's disgusting." Tali said in mock disgust.

Garrus shrugged his shoulders, "Better than being a human. Every day? That's just ridiculous."

"Question three. When I walked into the armoury to find Operative Taylor performing his daily push-ups with only half his average amount of clothes, why did the lower half of my torso feel so peculiar?"

Garrus spat out his coffee in surprise, "There's no way in hell me and Tali are giving you "the talk". We're not your parents. Next question."

Looking slightly put out, EDI continued to read from her paper, "Question four. Is this what normal human genitals look like?" She withdrew a photograph from her pocket and tried to show it to them, before they leapt out of their chairs in surprise.

"No way! There's no way I'm looking at that! Not even if Saren himself came back to life and put a gun to my head!" shouted Garrus.

"What's wrong?" EDI innocently asked.

"No offense, but I do not find humans attractive. At all. Too much hair and squishy parts for my liking."

"What about quarians?" Tali asked the hysterical turian with a hint of hope.

"Well, I don't know what they look like do I?"

A mixture of hope and disappointment filled Tali. At least he didn't say "No".

A groggy Kelly suddenly walked into the mess hall wearing her dressing gown. The sight of Garrus, Tali, EDI and the photo seemed to instantly perk her up more than a metric tonne of caffeine could have, "Is there something going on here? Can I join in?"

"No. To both of your questions." Garrus snapped.

Looking severely disappointed, Kelly shuffled off back to bed.

"Keelah." Tali said as she shook her head.

"Question five. Final question." EDI continued again as if nothing had happened.

"No." Garrus said as he held up a talon, "Sorry EDI, but these questions are getting way too personal."

"But this is the most important question. It's about…."

"No."

"But…"

"No."

"Fine." EDI grumbled as she stomped off towards the elevator, taking her paper and photo with her.

Tali and Garrus heard a strange noise behind them. They turned to see Kasumi there. Decloaked and sitting on the kitchen counter.

"Did you see that whole thing?" asked Tali.

"Yep" replied the thief, "Recorded it too using my graybox. It's going straight on the extranet."

The next morning, Shepard was looking out over the crowded CIC from her perch on the galaxy map pedestal. All the Cerberus personnel were all busy at work, rushing around and filing in various reports.

"Shepard-Commander."

Shepard turned to face the synthetic voice.

"We, along with Creator-Tali'Zorah and Goto-Kasumi, have transferred the Hammerhead Virtual Intelligence into EDI's previous Artificial Intelligence Core. There is a 94.7% chance that the Normandy will be fully operational again within approximately four to six Earth hours." Legion stated.

"He's no EDI, but he'll have to do. You techies did a good job."

"Thank you Shepard-Commander. We appreciate the compliment. We will pass on this compliment to Creator-Tali'Zorah and Goto-Kasumi." Legion said before he walked into the elevator with Miranda.

"Lawson-Miranda, your wrist appears to have taken structure damage."

"I'm fully aware of that Legion." Miranda said through gritted teeth.

The elevator departed and Shepard smiled to herself. The crew were becoming more and more like a close-knit family each day. Mordin walked over to her with an air of excitement. He had the prothean crystal in his palm, "Shepard, glad I caught you. Was wondering if I could transfer Legion's mind into recently deceased llama."

"No Mordin."

"But the scientific implications! I'm sure the geth wouldn't mind."

"No means no professor."

"Fine" huffed the salarian, "What do you want me to do with the crystal?"

"Store it somewhere. It could be useful in the fight against Harbinger and the Reapers. I'm not sure how it could be useful, but still; I'll think of something."

"You always do Commander" said Mordin with a smile before he walked back to his lab.

Shepard returned to looking out over the busy CIC. Amongst the crowd of squad members and Cerberus workers she noticed EDI (properly due to her bizarre walk that reminded Shepard of a drunk giraffe). She was making her way to the cockpit.

EDI tapped Joker on the shoulder. He turned to look at her. They exchanged a few words; Shepard couldn't make out what they were saying from this distance. Suddenly, out of the blue, EDI planted an extremely passionate kiss on Joker's lips that lasted at least half a minute.

EDI pulled away from an extremely shocked Joker, ignored all the shocked stares, high-fived Kelly and entered the elevator.

"I guess we know what question five was now." Tali whispered to Garrus.

"Why did she high-five you?" Shepard asked Kelly.

"Well" the yeoman started, "Last night she woke me up and asked me about human romantic rituals. We ah…..practiced kissing."

"Well, I guess someone had to." Shepard said before returning to the galaxy map, "What are you all standing around for? Back to work!"

A chorus of "yes ma'am!"s and "right away ma'am!"s erupted from all around the CIC as the squad members and Cerberus agents returned to their work stations.

Down in the woman's bathroom on deck three, EDI stared at her new body in the mirror.

"I think I'm going to like being human."


End file.
